


Memory Lane

by cloudwatcher13



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Gen, Mycroft is an old man, futuristic AU, the MCD happens before the story
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-07-09
Updated: 2016-07-10
Packaged: 2018-05-28 01:09:52
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 5
Words: 4,958
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6308167
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cloudwatcher13/pseuds/cloudwatcher13
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Ophelia returns from university to the house of the man she calls Myc. A story taking place about twenty years after the series ends. Sherlock once more is dead and at the same time isn't. With Mycroft ageing visibly she finally demands to know. But Mycroft doesn't believe in follies like history. Horribly subjective he complains.<br/>I just can't leave the Holmes' family story alone. Sorry. Not sorry enough to stop.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Untimely Returns

When people meet the first time, seconds decide where things are going. The famous first impression. The problem was that for Ophelia the moment of noticing someone for the first time often was over before they would take any notice of her. Many times she thus did not remember what her first impression had been but how the one opposite had reacted to her and her opinion on them formed accordingly. A circumstance that made her like most of the people she met and the world around her a friendly place. Little had happened in her life that would have had the capacity of changing this attitude towards existence. So far it had been a string of inanities and vanity only broken by the odd disappointment. There had always been someone around to attend to those, Mycroft most of the time.

Her earliest memory was an epighraph to the remaining time to come. A spring morning filled with the smell of Mycroft’s famous hothouse flowers. She was still small enough that the high grass of the gardens reached up to her nose. She ran fast enough for its ends to whip her cheeks and get tangled in her long hair. The batteries in the birds must have had been freshly replaced as she distinctly remembered them to be louder than usual, some a little out of tune from the long disuse of winter. At the point where the garden slowly melted into the less tended meadow she would let herself drop into the bed of leaves and haulms, both hands stretched above her head, and began to roll down the hill until the resistance of the wild flowers and lawn stopped her. The red of her silky hairband covered her eyes during her wild ride alternating with the blue of the sky and thousand shades of green from the grass into a swirl of colour, a rainbow wrapped around her. She thought of all that, leaned against the railing on top of a ferry, waiting for the young man in ripped jeans not more than a few yards away to gain a first impression of her. So far he was still watching the town disappear involutedly in a grey smog cloud behind them. When it happened, she could not stop a little pang of disappointment making itself felt as he only scanned her face for a second or two, nodded without a smile, then grabbed the shabby leather bag to his feet and trolled towards the seats in the front where the wind came afresh so that the longish strands of his hair would not get in the way when he looked at the sketch block on his thighs. She took a deep breath to clean her lungs of remaining city sooth and leaned far over the railing to have a look at the tiny waves the boat produced where it cut through the silver surface of the water. Sometimes you could see the outlines of trees and even buildings below that the water had swallowed, streets only fish occupied now.

The first time Mycroft had taken her to town she had hated it, too big, too noisy, Mycroft a constant bundle of nerves. He was another person out there, more badger than ratty. It had furrowed his brows when she told him so in the back of the car on their way back. He hated to be compared to badger, she knew. They had gone by car, Mycroft hated the ferry, still hated that she used it but had resigned from continuing the argument. “You’re the only one he loves enough to allow to win over him.” Maragareth would say, standing in the kitchen getting ready to peel apples for his favourite apple pie. Ophelia slouched in a chair at the kitchen table comfortably bored and only busying herself with watching the wind puffing the white curtains before the door towards the backyard. The chef had never lost her slight French accent and Shelly often frowned at it when he met her down there. “Fake.” He grumbled, and she looked at him appalled, every time.

Like every time she scurried around in the small crowd at the quayside, standing on the tip of her toes to catch a first glimpse of her, always worried Ophelia could have gotten lost on the non-stop ride to the island. The girl waved at her gingerly and smiled at the relief that spread in the old woman’s face. Margareth was getting older, a conspicuous fact especially in direct comparison to Shelly’s smooth face and black waves of hair.

“The Kettley’s had their one installed with a new feature that makes him age. The hair turns greyish and all that.” She had told Mycroft over one of their last dinners when she had been back from Oxford last summer.

“And what, I pray thee is the benefit of that?” He looked up from his iced melon soup for a short instant, another friendly frown above the golden edges of his glasses.

“Make it more realistic.” She had shrugged and crushed a half melted piece of ice between her teeth.

“We both know he isn’t.” Mycroft had muttered and she wasn’t sure whether it was her he had included in that we.

The man she called Myc was ageing himself and rather quickly so. That was the reason for her untimely return home in the middle of term. Not that she minded. Whether she put in effort or not, her achievements stayed about the same, somewhere on middle ground. She took off her gloves before hugging the elderly lady as they were blackened by city dirt. Maragareth closed her in an overenthusiastic embrace that ended with a wet kiss to her cheek and she let her be.

“No, no, give me that.” She tutted and took the bag from the girl’s protesting hands. Ophelia sighed and climbed into the passenger seat, slightly irritated that the blackened windows would not let in the sun. The couple soon slipped back into accustomed habits and roles and by the time the white gate at the end of the driveway closed behind them, Ophelia was a child again. Back then that metal gate had marked the end of her world and she hadn’t minded all too much as long as she stayed the centre of attention this side of the fence.


	2. The man she calls Myc

“It was nothing. You should not have come all the way for Margaret’s silliness.” Mycroft muttered. He was crouched over one of his bee hives. He took one of the delicate creatures on the palm of his hand and turned it over with a pair of tweezers. With a pipette he collected a small amount of pollen and covered the animal’s brushes in them, then took a careful look at the mechanics of the aged model before restarting the solar energy motor with a stub with a toothpick. You could hear the mechanic buzz as the tiny machine resumed its work. The bee vibrated and took off from his palm; he followed it with his eyes, a satisfied expression lingering between his brows.

“Where are the self-maintaining ones we got you for Christmas?” She watched him pick up the next one with exquisite delicateness.

“These are just fine.” He smiled at it as it disappeared into the blue of the sky. Ophelia sighed and took a seat in the metallic garden chair he had hung his jacket over. She watched him for a while as he slowly worked through the swarm in silence.

“What did the doctor say?” she finally broke the silence.

“Does it matter?”

“Well, yes.”

Mycroft sighed and carefully placed his tweezers on the rusty garden table. It was the first time he found the time to look at her. She could tell that it was only now that he became fully aware of her being there. Those times that he was far gone into his own thoughts had become more frequent, lately. His eyes scanned her in, took notice of all the tiny changes that had taken place in her since their last meeting. She tried to look determined to kill any attempts of him avoiding the topic.

“He wants me to come in sometime this week to have my heart checked.”

“But you’re not going.” She stated flatly.

“It was nothing.”

“You fell over and were unconscious.”

“And yet here I am.” He opened his arms widely and threw her a wide grin.

“You ought to go and have it checked, Myc. You’re not…”

“Getting younger?” he huffed and turned back towards the hive, cleaning the brush on the edge of the table.

“Invincible.” Ophelia disagreed under her breath.

There had been a time when she believed he was just that. Even now that his hair grew thinner and more pale, she couldn’t imagine him growing frail.

Shelly appeared in the distance, both hands in the pockets of his trousers. It was their sign to make their way inside so not to annoy Margaret who would have been eager to have dinner on the table on time.

You could feel that the evening followed a well-practiced routine whose familiarity neither of the characters involved seemed to mind. They took their tea in front of the large fireplace in the hall in relative silence that meant a welcome break from the bickering between the two men, Shelly moving an armchair for her to sit closer to him than Myc. A game of rivalry between the two she rolled her eyes at but which was at the core of her self-esteem. With both legs dangling over the armrest of her chair, she mused the picture over the fireplace, a portrait that had been there as long as she could remember. It was the portrait of a younger Shelly, placed in an armchair in a rather arrogant pose of crossed legs and in semi-profile that showed off the characteristic lines of his face. Behind him a blonde man leaned against the backrest, looking down into the thicket of his black curls with a half-smile.

It was the rustling in the hallway that woke her that night. When she opened the door of her room, she just about saw the paramedics disappearing in the master bedroom. Margaret caught her eyes and hurried over, her arms clasped around herself.

“I told him it would go this way.” She whined, shaking her head.

Ophelia tried to get past her and squeezed herself into Mycroft’s room. The doctor looked up at her for a short moment before turning back to sphygmomanometer.

“He was lucky.” He spoke, louder than absolutely necessary. Mycroft rolled his eyes at him. “Mr Holmes, this was a final warning, you are going to leave with us.”

Shelly was already busy packing clothing into the brown leather bag he used to take with him on his trips, it was worn and a bit dusty from the long period of disuse.

The house always felt empty when he was gone, no matter how many other people were in it. Shelly held the door open for the stretcher they rolled him out with, an expression of determination firmly placed on the surface of his face. Ophelia hid half behind him watching the ambulance disappear down the driveway. When the lights were no longer visible she let out an audible breath and fell back into the armchair she had occupied earlier that night. The golden frame stood out from the semi-darkness around.   
“You never asked?” David had once thrown at her in disbelief while she was eager to coax him towards the living room where she had planned to kiss him senseless to make use of the few occasions she was in the house unwatched. She remembered his voice now that she inspected the picture for the second time that day. 

“Why?” she had laughed at him, completely ignorant to the curiosity that drove other people to take interest in the history of their family. David had shaken his head at her but didn’t mind enough to not make out just below the mysterious portrait. 

Mortality just not seemed to be possible in the construction of theirs. She had been content with things as they were and though she was aware that the man she called Myc was too old to be her father, it had never sparked enough interest in her to enquire further.   
“He’ll be alright, he always is.” Shelly muttered, more to himself than her, both eyes fixed on the dying flames in the fireplace.

“I know.” She answered, but for the first time in her life, a hint of doubt was appearing over the edge of her mind’s horizon.


	3. No man is an island

„The part of your brain processing odours is one of the most primitive. That’s why people are so affected by them.“ Sherlock explained as he saw the uneasy look on her face reflecting in the polished steel of the hospital’s  elevator.  She nodded, leaned against the cold metal behind her. As usual he was uncomfortably right. To her the mix of rewarmed food, dry air and disinfectant somehow spelled doom and unsettled her system. She had been here a long time ago to have her tonsils removed, she had been very young.  There wasn’t much of a definite remembrance, just a blur of retold details and splinters of memory. She had asked Sherlock to come and visit her but it had only ever been Myc that turned up with unfaltering precision and persistence. She no longer held a grudge on him, silly to expect an android to feel things that way. Only back then, it seemed a different story.

The staff had tried their best to cater for the grumpy looking old man’s needs. Most of the white around the room disappeared behind flowers, Sherlock silently added another bouquet Margareth had sent. They had turned the bed so he half faced the window looking out onto the park and the residential area below. There was no greeting but a half hidden huff at her smile which only helped to widen it. A nurse entered and Sherlock jumped at the occasion, steering her outside and closing the door behind them. She moved a chair to sit in his line of vision, the hospital robe had aged him about ten years about night. Still, the eyes moved quickly in the skull, searched her face and found a reason for concern, sucked onto it and got the mouth to mercilessly speak it.

“The fact that I am mortal ought not be surprising to you, so why do you look so…crushed?”

His voice was the same, unchanged by any blow his body might take against him. She attempted no answer but looked at him until his stare finally faltered, following a swarm of birds outside instead.

“You’ll be fine, even if anything was to happen. I raised you. You got no reason to be scared. So what’s the fuss?” Though he spoke under his breath he still managed to sneer the last word.

“You’re my only relation. Is it that surprising that I should mind?”

He sighed with a mixture of annoyance and bone deep exhaustion.

“Don’t make yourself so emotionally dependent on others. You don’t need me, or anyone. Family is a nice asset but…” he stopped, his head slightly rising from the pillow with obvious effort.

“I’m not sure I know who I am.” She swallowed around the words while she watched the summer breeze gently tuzzling the trees outside.

“And how is me being around a remedy for that?”

“We…never talked. About things past, I mean.” She noticed her whiny tone mid sentence, changed gear and ended up with a toneless corpse of an utterance.

“I don’t see why we should. History.” He huffed but it turned into a cough that sent moisture to his bloodshot eyes. “It’s for the weak who can’t stand alone, have accomplished nothing of their own. “

“No man is an island, Mycroft.” She firmly stopped his rant before it had any chance of turning into one of his famous lectures. He sucked in his lower lip and drifted towards a group of swallows outside.

“I had hoped you’d turn out to become at least a peninsula.” He muttered after a while. The birds in front of the window narrowed their circles and disappeared from sight.

“Nope.” She crossed her arms and leaned the chairs back against the wall behind her, waiting for him to return from wherever his mind had taken him.

“What do you want to know?” his voice came from a place far away.

“Everything.” She swallowed as she noticed the impossibility of her request.  “Anything.” She corrected with lowered voice. “Anything that…I don’t know. Explains who we, who I am. Anything that explains why things are the way they are.”

There was an almost invisible nod from the bed as to praise the specification of the request. “ I waited. You never asked.”

The sky outside was of a radiant blue. So blue one hoped for a cloud to relieve the eyes from being drawn deeper , a life boat for the mind in the infinity of space. Somehow it had seemed dangerous to ask. A feeling of something dark hiding behind the thin façade of their everyday life. And there had been no reason. Things had been good the way they were.

“I never felt like I needed a past. Only now…” Their eyes met in agreement that the rest would stay unspoken.

“The trouble with stories, and especially histories is that they will tell you nothing. So horribly subjective.  Wherever you start, what ever you say, it’s always going to be just glimpses and interpretation.” His hands fell onto the white plain of the duvet, a storm brewing below the calm canvas of his face. They looked at each other for the first time in what seemed years.

“In the end a story will be as good as any.” He gave in.

She nodded towards the floor. Before he had decided to turn mortal, her life had been in a state of pleasant immobility. Now that she was adrift, a starting point seemed essential.

“Just start anywhere.” she offered.

There had been times when he had sat next to her bed the same way she did now, the folded hands hanging between her knees, bowed head. He’d tell her stories though he had never gotten the hang f age appropriate suspense so that they either turned into long lectures or confronted her with the twistedness of what he called “life out there”.

A change in posture signalled that he had decided on a loose thread with which to start. She kneaded her thumbs, staring onto the grey floor.

“Our family has never been of the ordinary kind.” He began. “We seem to have crossed the line between genius and madness more often than others are in the habit of doing so.”


	4. Two brothers are A beginning

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> This chapter is based on two brothers that did realyl exist. See end for details.

“Brothers. Most of the offspring in our family was male. Curious really. But those two were peculiar in multiple ways as they meant the beginning of many things that…” he stopped, looked out of the window as if he was hoping to find the right words out there. “I for a long time imagined families as a whole to be like creatures that have an evolving DNA. Things, habits, customs shape it and become important parts of it. And these two were the first in a long line of brothers in the Holmes family. The Holmes are landed gentry, nothing particularly extraordinary, the kind of family that could keep up the expected lifestyle of their social class as long as no one played cards too much or married all too foolishly.  Their father Alfred the Older had managed to keep both habits under control and so he married the daughter of the Parish vicar, not a particularly favourable match but the girl was dull enough not to mind his…oddities. She did mind however not having a daughter. Or any children really. For a long time their marriage was childless and so they took in a niece of hers, more to keep Mrs Holmes happy than philanthropy, I am sure.”

“How do you know all this?” she interrupted and Mycroft reacted with a brusque movement of the eyebrows. She waved a hand in silent apology and he moved up on the pillow again so to look at her more directly.

“There are letters. Many. Charlotte, the niece wrote to her sisters and also her mother, it’s from her that anything is known about the two brothers. “ He tried to catch a bit of breath, reaching for a glass of water on the side table of his bed.  “Most of the correspondence in the family has been secured in one way or the other, there was always someone around bored enough to keep track of these things.” He coughed, some of the water spilled over his hands on which the blue veins were clearly visible. The back of his hand looked like a weathered map of canals, wrinkled, weathered and worn out by use.

“Charlotte describes Alfred as being an odd child, rather on his own than around others, easily irritated and strange in his ways. She looked at him with benevolent disinterest until one memorable day the two of them got into a fight about her violin. The boy would follow her wherever she went as long as she had the instrument with him. Finally he asked to learn how to play it himself. Charlotte was by no means amused but feared that she might be neglected now that her benefactors had a child of their own and a son that was followed by a second one only two years later. So she was all too pleased when Mr Holmes denied to grant his son the wish at first. Music wasn’t something he had his first born envisioned to be involved with but the child was not to be dissuaded.”

“How old was he?” Ophelia asked, taking the empty glass from his hand and refilled it. They were cold to the touch, felt lifeless. Bruises began to show where the IV had been pushed through the leathery skin.

“Maybe four or five. He stole the instrument one night and would not give up its hiding place until his father agreed to teach him. Mr Holmes had been a bit of a musician himself but had given it up in favour of a law career in his early twenties, obliging to his own father’s wishes.”

“Why wouldn’t he let his son play the instrument if he had enjoyed it himself?”

There was a thin smile smothered over Mycroft’s lips but he wouldn’t comment on its reasons. Instead he swirled the water in the glass until it almost spilled over his hands again, searching its ground for something only he knew about. She began to fear he had drifted off too far when he continued.

 “This is when it became much more difficult for Charlotte. The boy was more than just talented, so much became obvious rapidly. Soon, her lessons were neglected in favour of his, word spread and neighbours would flock to the drawing room to hear young Holmes play. Mrs Holmes certainly was his biggest fan and was eager to have Henry follow a similar path. The younger one must have been talented as well but lacked the same incentive his brother had shown so vividly at a young age. “

They both fell into a conspiratory silence when Sherlock appeared in the door.

“As if I’d be interested.” the younger one huffed, though a pouted lower lip betrayed his emotional state. He was followed by a nurse that rolled in a tray under constant chatter. She didn’t seem to mind Mycroft’s evil look when he lifted the plastic lid and faced a large bowl of soup and little else.

“You’re here with a heart condition Mr Holmes.” She chirped as an explanation.

“So you decided to starve me to death instead of letting me go with a heart attack?” he snapped back, crushing the bun in his right fist. The nurse smiled uninvolved and began scribbling notes into his file while looking at him. Sherlock and Ophelia watched him eat in silence, watched him tire even under such an easy task. He looked foreign, suddenly a weak and vulnerable, old man.

“Ask her for some tea at least.” Sherlock muttered, pressing her shoulder. She nodded and turned towards the hallway. Looking around she finally got hold of another nurse that was handing out food and was directed towards a small kitchen at the end of the hall where she unwrapped a teabag and dipped it into lukewarm water from an elderly kettle. Mycroft usually had loose tea. Green in the mornings. Black all other times. No milk. A pinch of lemon. She added a sachet of sugar instead.  When she returned to the room, balancing her precious cargo, Sherlock was cleaning away the tray silently, then pulled up the duvet over the shoulders of his sleeping brother.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Alfred and Henry Holmes were composers and violin players in the 19th century. The brothers performed and composed together.


	5. Definitions of Fun

Sherlock carefully sat down on the sofa next to her. He hated cartoons, always had. And still they sat in silence, watching some show about unicorns she had never seen before. Margareth huffed when she saw she had taken her breakfast with her, she still didn’t like it when she wouldn’t eat at the table. She would faint would she see her college room, Ophelia thought and Sherlock smirked at her as if he had been reading her thoughts.

“As a baby you were scared of the TV. You started to cry whenever it was turned on.”

“Did I?” she spit out with a few crumbs of her croissant. Sherlock smiled and collected them from te sleeve of her pale pink blouse. 

“I’m surprised Mycroft would allow me to watch anyhow. He was always so concerned with my intellectual development as far as I remember.”

“He wasn’t around back then.” Sherlock answered and got up. He had spotted his violin in the corner and Ophelia knew there would be no point trying to continue the conversation. She was used to it. Sherlock had always been a bit evasive in conversations. She often wondered why Myc had him programmed that way. As usual she trusted he had is reasons and had never questioned. 

 

“He wasn’t in the mood.” There was no need for Mycroft to actually pose the question. He boughed an eyebrow and folded the newspaper he had been holding. 

“You shouldn’t feel obliged either.” 

“I don’t.” She moved the chair to where it had been the day before, smiling at him the best way she could. They looked at each other for a small eternity, neither knowing how to go on in this conversation. 

“Henry and Alfred.” Mycroft finally spoke, folding his hands over the newspaper. He had been thinking this through, she could tell from the way he looked into the half distance at something that wasn’t there. So she didn’t answer but waited.

“The brothers soon outgrew their performances in the living room and when Alfred was seven, their mother had nagged Mr Holmes long enough for him to find an agent. She was determined the two would mean the family’s escape from mediocracy and so they ended up performing at Royal Albert Hall the same year."

Ophelia whistled in mock admiration and coaxed a smile from the elderly man. 

“Yes, yes, they did, and not with little success. It was successful enough for the family to resettle to London for most of the year. Might be that Mrs Holmes was also looking for a chance to escape country life and maybe at this point also her husband. But this is basically how the family ended up in London. She justified it with them being able to attend Spohr’s Violin School.”

“What happened to the cousin?”

“She was dragged along, but never got over having to step back in favour of the two boys’ fame. She got married soon, the one person that would keep her in the inner circle, their violin teacher.”

“So they lived happily ever after.”

“Nothing is ever a happily ever after.” Mycroft insisted, raising himself slightly from the pillow. “Life ends in death, there is no happy ending unless you stop telling the story midway.”

“So what’s the point then?” Ophelia giggled but Mycroft’s sinister stare left no doubt he was serious about this. 

“There is no point.” He articulated slowly and with emphasis. “one can try and find one that seems worthwile to keep up the illusion.” He added, keeping his eyes just above her face. His skin seemed too big for what was left of him. Like a suit he had outgrown she thought.

“Things did not stay peaceful between the brothers for long either.” He picked up the story again, falling back into his bed as if defeated. “The older one revelled in playing the diva overusing what people described as being typical for a genius artist like him.”

“Rock star lifestyle?” 

“Quite.” Mycroft sighed. “Gambling, a series of relationship with women of the society and otherwise. The letters mention several instances where the younger one had to bail him out.”  
“So he didn’t join in the fun?”

Mycroft huffed. “Fun. Irresponsible. It all reached a boiling point when he was accused of having fathered a child with a debutante but refused to marry her.”

“Would make quite a bland story without his escapades, don’t you think?”

He slightly shook his head, inspecting his fingers. “Can you ask Sherlock to have an eye on the bees?” 

She knew conversation was over. She leaned back and tried to remember him the way she once did see him.


End file.
